Introducing some of our 2014 scholarship recipients — 14 amazing people are coming from California, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, New York and North Carolina.

The scholarship program brings some great people who you will definitely want to meet at TCamp! We would also like to thank the Knight Foundation for providing 5 additional community scholarships this year.

Without further ado, here are a few class of 2014 TCamp scholars.

Dave Maass, EFF

Dave Maass, Investigative Researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a freelance journalist, uncovered misconduct through public records that resulted in criminal prosecutions, the closure of one government agency and myriad other reforms.

Dave, who works out of San Francisco, has a wide range of expertise including: campaign finance, investigations into abuse at prisons, government surveillance and intellectual property. Lucky for us TCampers, Dave said he wants to “share my knowledge with other open government advocates. Of course, I’d also like the opportunity to talk to folks about the work we’re doing now at EFF, particularly around NSA spying.”

Pauline Chow

Pauline Chow comes from Safe Routes National Partnership, where she works on relationship building and legislation. She describes her work as “engaging with community outreach and partnering with organizations that conduct residential training/empowerment workshops to monolingual communities. I also translate complicated transportation finance research for the public and traditional partners who are not, but should be, involved with our issues. I have experience with working in low-income and communities of color, attempting to engage them in land use and basic rights issues.” We can’t wait for Pauline to share her experiences at TCamp.

Susan Wallace

Susan Wallace is an advocate, activist and writer from Ames, Iowa. When asked about the importance of transparency, she eloquently responded, “My basic premise is transparency, in all areas of government and at all levels — local, state and national — is imperative for a healthy democracy. The more citizens know about decisions and actions taken by their government, the better prepared they are to make informed decisions about those who maintain positions of power in government.”

Jessica McInchak

Jessica McInchak of Data Driven Detroit and the Detroit Ledger

Jessica McInchak is an intern turned co-founding member of the Detroit Ledger, a comprehensive (and still ever growing) grants database of Detroit’s philanthropic landscape. If that wasn’t impressive enough, Jessica is also “an analyst and contractor at Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit data shop and National Neighborhood Indicators Partner.” She works as a researcher and data analyst with “a growing passion for programming and coding, particularly around interactive data visualizations.”

When Jessica was asked about her plans for TCamp, she replied, “At TransparencyCamp, I am particularly interested in brainstorming around the question, ‘How can communities effectively advocate for transparency when our governments are increasingly less democratic and accountable to their citizens, especially in the cases of emergency management and privatization?’” We can’t wait to hear TCampers’ thoughts on this meaningful question.

J. Albert Bowden

J. Albert Bowden of Virginia Beach is a front-end developer who volunteers for open government projects. He is a fervent defender of a free and open Internet and believes “access to the Internet is a fundamental human right.”

Bowden is going to TCamp “to gain hands-on experience and insight from thought leaders, from which I can take directly to my Code for America meetup and deliver the message even further.”